Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1887-04-22
ONE HUNDRED YEARS" AGO.

Tho People Of the United States at tho
Close Of tho Revolutionary War-strikin =
Contrasts With the Present
! The second volume OF John Bach
McMaster's History Of the people Of
the United States from the Revolu-
| ton to the Civil War;" is even more
interesting than the first volume. No
such vivid presentation of the life OF
our ancestors at the beginning Of this
century has ever before been made or
even attempted. *...
Heis never weary of contras ting the
past and the present of American life,
and many are the striking comparisons
which he is enabled to make in the pro-
gress OF his work. Here is an example
which isparticularly interesting: "On
the resignation of Samuel Osgood in
| 1871 the office of postmaster-general
was bestowed on Timothy Pickering.
so insignificant was the place and so
light the duties that officer was to
perform that Washington did not
think him worthy of g. cabinet seat.
Yet there is now no other department.
OF government IN which the people take
SO lively an interest as in that over
which postmaster -general presides.
The number of men that care whether
the Indians get their blankets and
their rations on the frontier, whether
one company or two are stationed at
Fort Dodge, whether there is a feet of
gunboats in the Mediterranean sea
is extremely small But the sun never
sets without millions upon millions OF
our citizens intrusting to the mails let
ters and postal-cards, money-orders
and packages, in the safe and speedy
delivery Of which they are deeply con
cerred. The. growth OF the postoffice
IN the last ninety years is indeed amaz-
ing. In 1902 there were 264 post
Offices in the country, now there are
$4,000. The yearly revenue which
they yielded then was $25, 900; now it
is far above $40, 100000. More time
was then consumed in carrying letters
ninety miles than now suffices to carry
them 900. The postage required to
send q letter from New York to Sa-
vannah was precisely eighteen times as
much as will now send one far beyond
the Rocky mountains, into regions of
which our ancestors had never heard"
This passage is Il very good example
OF Mr.. McMaster's style. 1t will be
seen at a glance that all the Informal
ton might have been given with one
half the number of words. Wecan al
so see how the contrast has been
heightened by rhetorical devices, but
the passage attracts our attention, it
interests us, we read it, and we proba-
bly, remember it, when if put in more
condensed and statistical form it
would leave no impression.
Mr.. McMaster has a good deal to
say at different times about the diff
culties oftravel and communications in
the early years Of the republic. This
neutrality-suspicious. with foreign govern
ments peculiarly difficult. . At the
time the British treaty of 1904 was
under discussion Monroe was minister
at Paris. The proposed treaty was
naturally most distasteful to the
French government and Monroe was
informed that 1.-THE moment the treaty
was approved, that moment the d.
rectory considered the alliance with
America at an end. The next day he
dispatched the news to the secretary
OF state. The letter was still upon
the sea when Washington proclaimed
the treaty the supreme law of the land,
and sent copy to the house." Tray
el at horne was done by the stage
coach. This "was little better than a
huge covered box mounted on springs.
1t had neither glass windows nor doors
nor steps nor closed sides. The roof
was upheld by eight posts which rose
from the body Of the vehicle, and the
body was commonly breast-high. In
this uncomfortable conveyance man
might travel some four or five miles
an hour. With the exception of some
parts Of New England, the wayside
accommodation which the tray
eler found was miserably bad.
Strangers were put together in the
same room and the same bed.
The bed clothes were changed not for
new arrivals but at stated times. All
sorts OF extortions were practiced up
on travellers. The genealogist who
studies the history of American fami-
lies has frequent occasion to note the
compactness of those families UP to
about fifty years ago. For many gen.
erations the members OF a family, with
very few exceptions, will be found to
have lived and died in about the same
place, spreading somewhatin the man
ner of a thrifty plant which slowly in
creases it's area rather than that of an
animal which roamed freely about.
Many of these families which are the
most widely scattered lived, previous
to the introduction of the railroad, to-
gether in the same portion of the same
state. We have given us many facts
OF interest concerning the early history
OF the steamboat. Fulton's Hudson
river success was by no means the first
OCCASION upon which American waters
were navigated by steam-propelled
vessels. The idea, had been working in
the minds OF a few men for number
of years. AS early as 1857 rude plan
OF a steamboat had been presented to
tho constitutional convention. In
1889 a boat was constructed which
Travelled mile in seven minutes and
a half. A few months later a steam
boat began to run regularly as a ferry
in Philadelphia.
Agriculture, at the beginning of the
century, was a simple matter. "Agri-
culture as we now know it can scarcely
be said to have existed. The pillow was
little used. The hoe was the imple-
ment Of husbandry. Made at the
plantation smithy, the blade was ILL
formed and clumsy; the handle was a
sapling with the bark left on" In Vir.
glnla horses were driven over the grain
in the open field to thresh it, and it
was ground with rude pestle and
mortar. s"For hundred years the
farms, Of precisely the same size, had
been kept in the same families and